THERE are times I wish we were more globalized. Have you noticed how Philippine media reports on disasters or scandals abroad? It typically goes something like this: ?Bali bomber caught; looks like Pinoy.? ?Michael Jackson loved kids, Pinoy nanny testifies.? ?Glacier melts in North Pole; no Filipino drowns.? And not just media. Even our own Department of Foreign Affairs has gotten into the act. The other day, they were quoted as saying: ?No Filipino in Detroit airplane bomb try.? We take something global, say, global warming, terrorism, or religious fundamentalism, and instead frame it mainly in terms of the local, with us as victims or bystanders.
I can perfectly understand that with the Filipino diaspora, it is indeed news when no Filipino is present in any newsworthy event abroad. For sure, half the time, this is justified. Whenever Somali pirates hit ships in the Indian Ocean, we wonder if one of our own was on board. The trained Filipino seaman is so highly coveted in the shipping industry that, for both the public and the seamen?s families, we need to know when Pinoys are taken to Mogadishu. But the other half of the time, we need to play Copernicus telling his fellow earthlings that the earth is not the center of the universe.
Each time we have a big political crisis, have you noticed how people exclaim, ?The whole world is watching.? Hey, guys, you?re in for a surprise. They?re not watching us! They?re watching the World Cup, or the Super Bowl, or the World Series, respectively, for the following sports: soccer, American football and baseball. It so happens there are other sports aside from basketball. But one thing for sure. They?re not overly concerned about that one tiny blip on the global screen that merits 60 seconds on CNN only for ?Ondoy?s? floods or the Maguindanao massacre. It is my hope that globalization will shake us out of our insular thinking, that narrow-minded narcissistic fixation on ourselves. We should care about the attempted bombing in a Detroit plane because terrorism is bad, period, even if no Filipino was on board.
On the other hand, there are other times when I wish for less globalization. Many of us rejoice that so many erstwhile ?imported goods? are today easily and cheaply available, but we scarcely realize that this has actually hyped up gift-giving and celebrating. It used to be, two decades ago, that a delicious chocolate bar meant a crisp Nestlé Chocolate Crunch?since the goal would have been to go a few notches above the locally made Choc-Nut. Today one would have to aim for Swiss or Belgian chocolate truffles, or even better, some freshly made chocolate treats which are then stored in some sort of thermal wrapper with its own refrigerated gel to keep it frozen.
Today we take it for granted that fancy chocolates can be bought off the shelf in supermarkets. The oldies would have a hard time explaining to teenagers and twentysomethings that once upon a time, these goodies were found only in ?PX? stores that sourced their merchandise from either the American military bases or from local smugglers, or that one would have to drive all the way to Angeles City to find affordable imported stuff. The same thing for grapes and oranges?but this time it would be difficult to explain even to the parents why today these erstwhile imported fruits are even cheaper than local mangosteen and mangoes (respectively, quintessential examples of a yin and a yang fruit) that apparently are now in demand abroad.
The upside of globalization is the hope?merely a hope at the moment?that the wider availability of goods will make the market more sophisticated, and that a genuinely sophisticated Filipino consumer will emerge who can appreciate and demand excellent native goods and crafts. In other words, let Florida orange juice compete with the local dalandan sweetened with raw honey, and let?s see who wins. But what I deplore about globalization is that it artificially creates tastes and cravings that are out of touch with our Third World realities. We can satisfy these contrived wants only by numbing ourselves to others? suffering. Consider imported bottled water. What joy is there in a bottle of sparkling Pellegrino when children beg in the streets?
But the most insidious side effect of globalization is that it has upped the ante for corruption. I have read a New York magazine?s feature about high living by a son of Gen. Carlos Garcia, former AFP comptroller now in the dock on various corruption-related charges. Tim Garcia, himself under house arrest abroad, was described as ?decked in head-to-toe designer: a supple caramel leather Alessandro dell?Acqua jacket, Alexander McQueen jeans, a thin white LnA tee shirt and YSL boots. His wrists are adorned with a big Cartier gold and silver Tank watch, a Cartier Love bracelet, a white enamel Hermes bangle and a $1,000 large gold plated spiked Hermes cuff called the Collier de Chien.? I don?t even recognize many of those chic labels but maybe that?s the point. Rich Filipinos love to flaunt obscure perfume labels, for example, to make Christian Dior and Coco Chanel sound commonplace and pedestrian.
That problem wasn?t created by globalization. It was created by social inequality. Globalization merely provides classier symbols by which the wealthy signal their place in the pecking order and by which the poor are told to accept it. As we welcome the New Year, let us know the difference between having and being, fight the obsession for things and recapture the fascination with life?s moments.
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